A chief executive has spoken about how ‘extremely proud’ she is of her staff after a Clevedon hospital was praised for its cleanliness by a healthcare watchdog.

North Somerset Community Hospital has received a 100 per cent cleanliness rating in a recent inspection carried out by the Health Watch North Somerset.

The hospital, in Old Street, received the rating following the Patient-Led Assessments of the Care Environment (PLACE) visit which took place in May.

This has been the first PLACE assessment since the inpatient facility, the Elton Rehabilitation Unit, re-opened following a refurbishment project.

The 100 per cent assessment was a 0.5 per cent increase over the past PLACE assessment of the unit which was carried out in 2015.

The watchdog also rated the unit’s dementia friendliness as 98 per cent, an eight per cent increase on the previous report’s findings.

The unit provides intensive therapy as well as 24-hour nursing support to enable patients who have ongoing rehabilitation needs to move out of an acute hospital bed as soon as they are medically well enough to do so.

The £417,000 refurbishment project saw the unit closed for almost two years as work was carried out to improve wall structures and level floors.

The unit was temporarily closed again for a fortnight while £7,500 essential fire safety improvements were also carried out.

Judith Brown, chief executive of the North Somerset Community Partnership who runs the hospital, said: “I am extremely proud of the service the hospital provides to our patients.

“We are always striving to ensure our patients receive the highest quality care possible and it is always pleasing when external assessments demonstrate the effectiveness of the hard work of our staff.

“The team at the hospital continue to work really hard to ensure the stay of each patient is geared up towards getting them back home again as soon as possible.

“There has been a particular effort to enhance the dementia-friendliness of the unit and it is good to see this reflected in the eight per cent jump for this score.

“The team should be really happy about the positive rating the patient-led assessment gave our hospital.”